Rhetorical Analysis

High tech and controlled marijuana greenhouse hoping to produce a fine product

Taken from google

Rhetorical Analysis of Lovett’s “In California, Marijuana Is Smelling More Like Big Business”

“Fashion changes, haircuts change. We go through cultural changes,” said by Tommy Chong, one of the world’s most famous marijuana enthusiast and specialist. With the legalization of marijuana for recreational use returning to the California poll since nearly 6 years ago, author Ian Lovett of the New York Times, wrote, “In California, Marijuana Is Smelling More Like Big Business,” discussing the potential economic benefits California may receive with the distribution of medicinal marijuana. Lovett provides personal opinions, respectable sources, and effective writing strategies that may support why California might be the next Wall Street for the marijuana industry.

Since California was the first state to legalize medicinal cannabis in 1996, Lovett justifies how the marijuana industry has been a hectic scramble motivating many cannabis sellers and/or farmers, and thirsty out of state investors willing to take advantage of the new industry. Cannabis still being the “narcotic” drug being sold in the streets, Lovett warns us that this may influence drug businesses to exploit the new legal industry working around the legal system. With voters expected to approve marijuana for recreational use in November, Lovett illustrates that business will only have an up-hill effect.

Lovett links many sources leading to research firms having readers explore and examine what financial profit businesses all over California have obtained from growing. For example, “ArcView” and “Frontier,” two cannabis research companies have claimed “2.7 billion dollars” were made due to medical marijuana sales in California last year. Lovett links his readers to credible up-to-date information spreading awareness of what the future of marijuana looks like.

Lovett also provides many examples of investors looking to expand their technology and equipment hoping to deliver the most potent and effective product. CalCann Holdings, a medical marijuana holding company, “plans to build a high tech greenhouse along with a kitchen to produce edible marijuana in Orange County.” Instead of the marijuana industry being portrayed as a scary and illegal business, Lovett alarms his readers that the marijuana industry seeks to improve only onto their business and not on materialistic things.

Although Lovett’s writing appears to seem biased and approve of the recreational use of marijuana, his facts persuade readers to support legalization. Lovett quotes Aarong Herzberg, general counsel for CalCann (marijuana company), saying, “Marijuana [is] to be just as easy to grow tomatoes in a garden…It will be like alcohol — you can’t just set up a still and produce it in your garage. You have to apply for permits and pay taxes,” hopefully encouraging many people to enter the marijuana industry, whether being a consumer or producer.